vacation. You're
doing some pretty tall hustling for a sick man, I must say."

"I'll tell you the truth, Hymie," Abe replied, "I ain't got no time to
be sick. It ain't half-past three yet, and I guess I'll take a couple of
them garments and see what I can do with the jobbing and retail trade in
this here town."

"Don't you think you'd better take it easy for a while, Abe?" Hyman
suggested.

"I am taking it easy," said Abe. "So long as I ain't working I'm
resting, ain't it, Hymie? And you know as well as I do, Hymie, selling
goods never was work to me. It's a pleasure, Hymie, I assure you."

He placed two of the plum-colored Empire gowns under his arm, and
thrusting his hat firmly on the back of his head made straight for the
dry-goods district. Two hours later he returned, wearing a broad smile
that threatened to engulf his stubby black mustache between his nose and
his chin.

"Hymie," he said, "I'm sorry I got to disturb that nice pile you made of
them garments. I'll get right to work myself and assort the sizes."

"Why, what's the trouble now, Abe?" Hyman asked.

"I disposed of 'em, Hymie," Abe replied. "Two hundred to Hamburg and
Weiss. Three hundred to the Capitol Credit Outfitting Company, and five
hundred to Feinroth and Pearl."

"Hold on there, Abe!" Hymie exclaimed. "You only got six hundred, and
you sold a thousand garments."

"I know, Hymie," said Abe, "but I'm going home to-morrow, and I got a
month in which to ship the balance."

"Going home?" Hyman cried.

"Sure," said Abe. "I had a good long vacation, and now I got to get down
to business."

One morning, two weeks later, Abe sat with his feet cocked up on his
desk in the show-room of Potash & Perlmutter's spacious cloak and suit
establishment. Between his teeth he held a fine Pittsburgh cheroot at an
angle of about ninety-five degrees to his protruding under-lip, and he
perused with relish the business-trouble column of the Daily Cloak and
Suit Record.

"Now, what do you think of that?" he exclaimed.

"What do I think of what, Abe?" Morris inquired.

For answer Abe thrust the paper toward his partner with one hand, and
indicated a scare headline with the other.

"Fraudulent Bankruptcy in Galveston," it read. "A petition in bankruptcy
was filed yesterday against Siegmund Lowenstein, doing business as the
O'Gorman-Henderson Dry-Goods Company, in Galveston, Texas. When the
Federal receiver took charge of the bankrupt's premises they were